Standing guard at the scene of the crime, the two police officers
surveyed the shattered glass and bullet-pocked bodywork of the Mercedes
Benz hatchback and offered their analysis.

“It’s an eye for an eye,” said one, repeating a phrase often heard in
this coastal city, about 200 miles south-west of Guadalajara. “It’s two
groups getting even with each other.”

As the officers spoke, a group of children kicked a football just
beyond the yellow crime scene tape, and customers wandered unperturbed
in and out of a row of shops.

Only an hour before gunmen on a motorcycle had opened fire on the car
which crashed into the side of a health clinic; miraculously the two
occupants survived.

Manzanillo and the surrounding state of Colima were once best known
for their black sand beaches, lime groves and a smoldering volcano that
erupts every century or so.

Over the past year, however, the region has claimed a new title: murder capital of Mexico. According to federal figures, Colima registered 434 homicides in the first nine months of 2016 – a huge number in a population of just 700,000.

Local officials blame the killings on outsiders or describe it as score-settling between petty criminals.

But analysts of the drug war say the violence is part of a nationwide
realignment of organized crime – and a bitter struggle to control the
port of Manzanillo, one of the biggest on Mexico’s Pacific coast.

Ten years of a militarised campaign against the cartels has not ended the trade in drugs, or helped enforce rule of law in Mexico.
It has, however, weakened or splintered several crime factions, leaving
a handful of powerful survivors fighting for the spoils.

Colima is currently the setting for a confrontation between two of
the most formidable: the Sinaloa Federation – led by imprisoned capo Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán – and the Jalisco New Generation cartel, known by its Spanish initials as the CJNG.

“Most of the [Mexican] cartels have been weakened,” said Mike Vigil, a
former Drug Enforcement Administration agent who worked undercover in
Mexico. “The only two powerful cartels left are Sinaloa and the CJNG.”

Graphic: Jan Diehm/The Guardian

The CJNG – based in the neighbouring state of Jalisco – has already
established a reputation as one of the country’s fastest-growing and
most aggressive groups, willing to confront both rivals in the
underworld and federal forces.

It emerged in 2010 following a fight for the spoils of a prominent Sinaloa cartel boss, Nacho Coronel, who was killed by the army,
and for the past five years or so it has used Manzanillo to import
chemical precursors from Asia for the production of methamphetamines.

Last year, while Guzmán was still on the run after escaping from a high-security jail, Sinaloa made a move on Colima.

The cartel publicly announced its arrival in October 2015, with a narcocorrido
song and a Facebook message entitled “Sinaloa is now in Colima”. The
message heralded the launch of “Operation Cleanup”, striking a familiar
tone in Mexico, where criminal groups try to cloak their activities in
the language of social activism.

But within months, Guzmán was recaptured; and with El Chapo currently
awaiting extradition to the US, a violent rearrangement of the
underworld appears under way – and Colima is one of its principle
battlegrounds.

Authorities blamed the abduction on the CJNG, suggesting that the
upstart cartel was trying to take advantage of Guzmán’s imprisonment.

But Guzmán was later reportedly released, and observers say that the
reports that Sinaloa has been weakened by El Chapo’s arrest may well
prove premature.

“The CJNG is gaining ground, but doesn’t have anywhere near the power
of the Sinaloa cartel,” said Miguel Ángel Vega, a reporter with the
Sinaloa-based news organization Ríodoce.

Vega said the cartel was well entrenched – both in the rugged Sierras
where it produces heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines, and in the
corridors of power, where it maintains connections at all levels of
government.

“The Sinaloa cartel is not just El Chapo,” he said.

The CJNG has also demonstrated a capacity to corrupt officials: a
recording surfaced in September in which a cowed police chief can be
heard taking orders from the group’s boss, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes,
AKA “El Mencho”.

Under El Mencho – himself a former police officer – the CJNG has made
violence its calling card. The group launched itself on the national
stage in 2011 by dumping 35 bodies under a bridge in the Atlantic coast state of Veracruz; at the time, the group called itself the Zeta-killers, and professed to be targeting the powerful Zetas cartel.

But the CJNG also showed itself willing to take on the Mexican state.

As federal forces closed in on El Mencho in May 2015, the CJNG
launched a coordinated show of strength across Jalisco and neighbouring
regions, blocking dozens of roads with hijacked vehicles and setting
banks and petrol stations on fire.

Colima state officials did not respond to interview requests, though
they have previously attempted to downplay talk of a cartel war.

State prosecutor Felipe de Jesús Muñoz Vázquez told local media in
August that 90% of homicides were related to organized crime – with 85
of those slayings explained by low-level drug dealing.

And despite the spiraling murder rate, local people in the state
capital also seem at pains to insist that the situation is in hand.

“There’s no panic on the streets here,” said Miguel Ángel Vargas,
news director of radio station Ángel Guardian, adding that people in
Colima city worried about personal finances and local issues such as
corruption and spending cuts.

Authorities in Manzanillo also insist their city is safe, even though
an analysis by the news organization Animal Politico ranked it as the
third-most violent municipality in the country – trailing only Acapulco
and Tecomán, another Colima municipality – with 103.87 homicides per
100,000 residents.

“Up until now, we have not found innocent people mixed up in these
events,” said Manzanillo police chief Miguel Ángel García, a retired
vice-admiral, repeating a refrain heard often in Mexico.

Local journalists say that much of the violence stems from the lack
of a strong boss to control the “plaza” – the local turf or trafficking
routes. Others suggested that the conflict was triggered by defections
from CJNG to Sinaloa.

“It’s a war over the local market,” said one longtime reporter,
asking for anonymity for security reasons. “Cartel de Jalisco sells ice
[methamphetamine], while Sinaloa sells cocaine.”

But few local residents expect either side to win a victory by force –
they believe that the solution will come from a political deal.

Some believe the violence will continue until one of the cartels
gains control with help from the government, noting the Sinaloa cartel’s
arrival in a state with a strong CJNG presence at the same time as a
change in the governor’s office.

“There’s no ‘pacto’” in Colima, one of the journalists said,
referring to an arrangement between authorities and one of the cartels.
“It won’t calm down here until there is.”

49 comments:

This article does not prove that the two " most powerful" cartels left in Mexico are fighting against each other. My guess would be that if CGNJ and CDS were really going at it in Colima there would be at least one strong leader in any of the two sides taking charge of the sitiation for their particular cartel but in which the authorities say there is a lack of one such person. Second even the same local authorities describe the situation as clashes between petty criminals.My guess is that both cartels CDS and CJNG are out arming and druging the population in Colima and letting them organize as well as battle each other out while these two sit back and collect money. If any one person comes out to be that missing "strong" local leader then they might just be absorbed into one of these two cartels if anything.

it is a war for the drug trafficking port, and only the military can win it, they will need it, the US will not be subsidizimg the mexican military forever, maybe as security guards on the former pemex oil fields, but if they hire chinese security guards, there will be nothing left but keep kidnapping and extorting pal maruchan...or become illegal immigrants with taco trucks on every corner of every trump building, to sell the rich and the beautiful their shit 24/7.

If they are at war why did mencho let the guzman alive , im guessing he got scared to go on a full scale war knowing he would had lost i just hope theres no more deaths in my love mexico i hope to visit my home state michoacan in December

1:24 nobody uses michoacan like the government sicarios, and nobody kills like the mexican military death squads, some days here, and some days there, until they get to you.--on the other hand, the TELETHON IS COMING, please help us help the children of mexico, we will let them travel in our yatch TV on a free trip to china, they will buy them there for organ donations and sex slaves. Send money, please!

Whats so impressive of a low life like mencha who order's coward attacks on federal forces and when they go looking for him he runs out like a pussy yeah very impressive lets not forget his 50 men who got slaughter were they especial force's lmao guess not

2:27 Tanhuato is now a crime of state under investigation, nobody was happy with the government's "historic truths" of Ayotzinapa, Apatzingan, Tlatlaya, and Tanhuato, among other heroics of the mexican state sponsored terrorism.

I remember a crime scene here in Chihuahua. It was in the parking lot of Home Depot. There was a red Volkswagen with Durango plates parked in it's stall, and behind it lay a man that had been just mowed down with automatic weapon fire. He was a car salesman. The parking lot was full of cars and shoppers going in and out of the store. The man was attacked in the middle of the day and after shooting him the man started shooting raped fire above the heads of the shoppers. Either to scare them or to make sure they did not get a good eyewitness account. Maybe because he was just on drugs. After the man entered a car and drove off with squealing tires the people it seems just quickly shrugged it off and went about their business. People walked by the body and entered the store and it was business as usual. This was about 5 years ago when shootings and robberies in parking lots and in restaurants and more at a rapid pace here.

As a man was having his ritual morning coffee in Denny's, 3 men walked in with smiles on their faces and assassinated him gangland style. It was a bloody and brutal scene. I knew the man and he was as good as a person as you could ever hope to know. Denny's as usual was packed. This was a little up close and personal for most of the diner's and the business took months to recover after this tragedy. He was known by almost all the people in Denny's and I am sure this had something to do with the slow down. It looks like things are heating up here in Chihuahua again and I am hoping that it does not get to this level again here. A relative of my wife's who was a young man of 18 years with a girlfriend and child had disappeared month ago. His body found a few days later with shots in the head. It did not even make the newspapers like so many killings. I never thought people could be desensitized to murders like this, but it does happen. I could go on about the killings around me, even personal ones where I knew the people, or were relatives or friends of someone. Me being a US citizen and living here just 7 years. In more than 55 years living in the USA I never experienced even one thing like I have experience's I have confronted here in Chihuahua. To be honest I have now become a little desensitized after seeing this happen all to often. I am now very cautious about where I travel and keep my head on a swivel. I am even being told by my wife that it is not a good idea to make new friends. Mexico is so beautiful with many wonderful people. When will this end, if ever? Many killings are not an eye for an eye here, but for wanting what you have.

My Dad just came back from this area last week. He was in Tecoman, Cahuayana, and went to El Resumidero, Mich. He says all is calm . The authorities recommend you dont go out at night, thats when the soldiers are out doing their thing. He says the Auto defensas are doing a significalty better job of patrolling their areas becuase they genuinely care. He also found it wierd that entering GDL via Chapala there was a soldier blockade then a blockade with people in civilian clothes

CJNG is receiving to much credit, They have no border city along the U.S.A to move their product. This cartel had 5 differnt names in the last 15 years, and guess what in 5 more years they will have a new name. They have no guts to take out Chapos kids

La nueva familia michoacana and cds are fighting cjng/la familia michoacana there. I guess the familia split for the 3rd time. But seems like la nueva familia is the weaker one because they are only in colima. CJNG had colima on lock but somehow that faction split off and now fighting cjng with cds and la nueva familia.

This is how it works in Mexico,the strongest in strength and moneymaking get a deal from local government who sell the plaza to them but even local government can be rats and sell the plaza again or stand by as in BCS ?

8:14 Don Pablo Escobar Gaviria Was Big.where he failed is, he was not as greedy and evil as alvaro uribe velez and his puppet masters, now open for business in "plan Mexico", they are the big cartels, even john gotti saw that, for example, gambling was a vice, until the american visionaries turned it into a "business".--robbing people's savings and loans, and banks, and the government were crimes, until "businessmen" turned politicians made it a government failure due to taxing too much the interest free loans made to amerikkka's corporate welfare queens that hey did not even have to repay, but had to be subsidized too...